Halvima eesti tõlkija tiitlil on uus pretendent

Ma olin alati arvanud, et nõukogude korra lõpul saabunud ettevõtlusvabadusega algas Eestis halbade tõlgete epideemia. Omal ajal mõtlesin välja lausa tõlkejubeduse mõõtühiku «kaer». Kui öelda näiteks, et tõlkija T tõlgete jubedus on 200 millikaera, siis tähendab see, et ta teeb tõlkevigu keskmiselt 5 korda vähem kui teate-küll-kes.

Hiljuti elasin aga üle tõelise vapustuse, kui lugesin läbi Isaac Asimovi romaani «Igaviku lõpp» nõukogudeaegse tõlke. See oli õuduste õudus, viga veas kinni. Hindaksin selle tõlke jubeduseks lausa 2,5 kaera või rohkemgi.

Nii et mu ettekujutus paistis olevat ekslik. Tegelikult on silmatorkavalt halbu tõlkeid tehtud varasematelgi aegadel, lihtsalt tähelepanu olen ma hakanud neile pöörama alles uuemal ajal. Küllap on see professionaalne kretinism – kui ise tõlkijana tegutsed, siis hakkad võõrastes tõlgetes vigu märkama ega suuda enam teksti õieti nautida, kui see halvasti tõlgitud on.

Kuidas on "user review" eesti keeles?

Keegi debiilik Hinnavaatluse foorumi tegijate hulgast on tulnud kummalisele mõttele, et user review peaks olema eesti keeles ülevaade. See on ilmselgelt väär, sest:

1. Ülevaade peab olema ülevaatlik, s.t. hõlmama enam-vähem kõiki objekti olulisi aspekte. User review võib väga vabalt keskenduda mõnele aspektile, mis on kirjutaja jaoks olulised, ja ignoreerida ülejäänuid.

2. Ülevaade on pigem pealiskaudne kui põhjalik. Väga detailset kirjeldust ülevaateks nimetada on imelik. User review võib aga väga vabalt olla põhjalik.

3. Ülevaade peaks pigem olema neutraalne, user review võib aga olla vägagi hinnanguline.

Ülevaateks võib nimetada näiteks tootjapoolset tootekirjeldust, mis sisaldab omaduste selgitust, tehnilisi näitajaid jms., minemata nii põhjalikuks nagu nt. kasutusjuhend.

Ülevaade on inglise keeles overview. User review eestikeelse vastena peaks igal vähegi keelt oskaval inimesel tulema esimesena pähe retsensioon, või kui soovitakse võõrsõna vältida, siis arvustus. Nende terminite puudus on aga ilmne – retsensioon seostub meil automaatselt teosega. Toote hinnangulist tutvustust retsensiooniks nimetada tundub veider. Arvustuse kasutusala ei ole minu meelest nii selgelt teostega piiratud nagu retsensioonil, aga väljend «fotoaparaadi arvustus» tundub ikka kuidagi pisut harjumatu. Parema puudumisel olen seda seni kasutanud, aga mis oleks kui võtaks kätte ja leiaks mingi parema sõna?

Vaatame kõnealuste terminite sõnaraamatutähendusi.

overview

general review or summary

review

critical appraisal of a book, play, or other work

(NB! Review on mitmetähenduslik sõna. Mina esitasin siin ainult meid huvitava alaliigi definitsiooni, mille täpne nimetus on user review.)

ülevaade

kogu ulatust haarav, terviklik pilt millestki, üldpilt

retsensioon

hindav arvustus; käsikirja, trükiteose, teatrilavastuse, filmi vms. põhjendatud hinnang

arvustus

(kirjalik) hinnang kirjandus-, kunsti- vm. loomingule

Näeme, et leksikoni järgi käib ka inglise keeles review teoste kohta. Praktikas on aga üldlevinud tema kasutamine ka toodete puhul, mis ei ole teosed. Söandaksin väita, et sama kehtib eestikeelse arvustuse kohta.

Nii või teisiti on definitsioonidest näha, et ülevaade (üldpilt) on hoopis midagi muud kui retsensioon või arvustus (põhjendatud hinnang).

Kokkuvõttes tundub minule, et tehnikakauba puhul kõlab retsensioon veidrana, arvustus mitte eriti. Paremana pakun aga välja uue sõna hinnangtutvustus. Pelk hinnang võib olla napisõnaline («pole viga»), hinnangtutvustus on aga põhjalikum. Pelk tutvustus võib olla lihtsalt neutraalne esitlus ilma hinnanguta (s.t. ülevaade), hinnangtutvustuse oluliseks sisuks on aga kirjutaja seisukohavõtt.

Tänapäeva veebimeistritel on võib-olla raske nii pikka sõna nagu hinnangtutvustus kokku lugeda, ülejäänutel aga soovitan selle kasutusele võtta. Retsensioon on siis lihtsalt hinnangtutvustuse alaliik, mille objektiks on teos. Arvustus sobib aga neile, kes uudissõna võõristavad, kasutamiseks nii teose kui ka toote puhul.

Mingi asja hinnangulise kirjelduse ülevaateks nimetamine, nagu seda Hinnavaatluse foorumis tehakse, on mõistagi totrus.

More on the crippledness of the English language's word-building

In my article "The Astonishing Primitiveness of the English Language", I touched upon the striking difficulty of building new words in the English language, resulting in the need for many loanwords and acronyms. In view of the comments from rather upset native English speakers, I feel I should elaborate a little bit on that subject. Again, this is not a scientific paper. It is merely an attempt to make a thing or two clearer. I am not trying to convince you of anything. I want to make you think.

When a dog is able to fetch the slippers when ordered to, the people admire it and say how dogs are so intelligent. When a human servant is able to fetch the slippers when ordered to, people think nothing of it, because human beings are expected to be able to fetch not only slippers but any available and carriable item named.

The English and Estonian (for instance) language are like dogs and humans in that respect. Once upon a time, a native English speaker thought about naming in a more compact way the people who have the compulsion to buy things. He thought about alcoholics, and he thought about shopping, and it suddenly occurred to him that the shopping addicts could be referred to as "shopaholics". And the word catched on. The people found it brilliant. Non-English speakers, when seeing a word like that, are likely to think: wow, the English language is so cool.

In Estonian, you have the word "ostma" which means "to buy". "Ost" means "purchase", "sõltuma" means "to depend", "sõltlane" means "addict". When someone first felt the need to create a term to refer to shopping addicts by, he just put those words together and wrote "ostusõltlane". It requires no inventiveness whatsoever, it's the routine way of word-building in Estonian.

In other words, in Estonian many neologisms are just created without a second thought, and pretty much everyone can do it when the need arises. In English, they find themselves published in "top 20 coolest invented words" lists. They cause admiration because they are so rare. In most cases, the English language is unable to create a new word, cool or uncool. Instead, it needs to find a loanword from another language. As a result, a place where people become mothers is called a maternity ward. Sick (haige) people are cured at a hospital (haigla). Doctors are giving the patients medical treatment (ravi) by prescribing pharmaceutical drugs (ravim). The nurse gives the patient an injection (süst), using a syringe (süstal). And while we're at it, let's not forget that the treatment heals (tervendab) the patient, and the patient also heals (terveneb). The word "healer" can mean someone who heals another person (tervendaja), but it can also mean someone who is being healed (terveneja). Hilarious.

For fairness's sake, I should mention that the acquisition of loanwords instead of creating one's own has an important advantage (which, of course, I am nowhere near the first to point out): one can often find several English words originating from different languages meaning almost but not quite the same thing (speed; velocity; rapidity). That enables a preciser distiction between close concepts. For instance, the Estonian language has only one word for "victim" and "sacrifice". So when you say that a person was an "ohver" of the Aztec priests, you will have to specify whether you mean to say that he was sacrificed or that he fell victim to the religious zeal. Neither does Estonian distinguish between "venom" and "poison". "Rat poison" would be "rotimürk" and "snake venom" would be "maomürk". In English you could, I assume, distinguish between "snake venom" (a poisonous substance a snake's organism creates) and "snake poison" (a poisonous substance used to kill snakes). In Estonian you can only make that distinction by adding a few words of explanation. So in that respect, English is more efficient than Estonian. But then again, it is hilarious to hear the English say "take a look at your watch or clock" because they don't have a word like the German "Uhr". I mean, it simply doesn't exist, and I can't see an easy way of creating one. And, well, obviously nobody has, so far. (And let us not forget that the word "watch" has other meanings too, so when you say that someone took the first watch, you might want to watch out for being misunderstood.)

The English tendency to magnetically attract loanwords becomes outright absurd when things that are exactly the same are being referred to by different words. A tank (in the meaning of armoured military vehicle) which belongs to Germany, can also be referred to as a panzer. So you can take two exactly identical tanks, paint German colours on the first and the French colours on the second, and all of a sudden the first tank has turned into a panzer while the second tank has remained just a tank.

That is mind-blowing. If German submarines are called U-boots (or even U-bootens), why aren't Russian submarines called podvodnaya lodkas? When a partisan happens to operate in a Spanish-speaking country, he is called a guerrilla. Would that make a Finnish partisan a sissi?

Rather than making up different words to name a tank by, you would think that people would spend their creative energy on making up a separate word for a cannon-carrying armoured vehicle, so they wouldn't have to call it with the same word as a container for liquids or use an acronym like ACV. But strangely enough, that doesn't bother the English-speaking peoples.

Speaking of acronyms, their disadvantage is obviously their inaccessibility to the uninitiated. Everyone can guess that a "mirror-camera" must be some kind of a photographic device, but there is no way to know that DSLR is a photography term and LGBT isn't, unless you have considerable pre-knowledge. But for some incomprehensible reason, the English-speaking peoples seem to  p r e f e r  the acronym DSLR. It would seem that they not only use acronyms when forced to because they can't create words. They seem to actually enjoy memorising and using an acronym even when there is a word.

Which brings me to a couple of totally retarded photography terms which goes slightly off topic here but illustrates nicely the English-speaking people's obsession with tradition.

I kept reading about that ISO thing being referred to as "ISO speed" in the English language, until at one moment I stopped and thought: "Wait, what speed?"

Larger ISO "speed" means that the light entering the camera's sensor is being amplified, so that it's possible to produce a proper photo when there is little light. But what on Earth is it supposed to have to do with speed?

I suspected it was because this signal amplification thing corresponded to some antique technology which had something to do with the speed of something. As I found out, that was precisely the case. "ISO speed" was the term used to mark the sensitivity of a photographic film to the light. But again, what fucking speed are we talking about? I did some more reading and, well, apparently the ancient English photographers, not excelling in logic, chose to call a more sensitive film "fast" because it took less time to transform the same amount of light into an image of the same brightness, compared to a "slow" (meaning less light-sensitive) film.

Right. So keep in mind that buildings are not high or low. The buildings with more stories are advanced scream buildings or ASB's (because a falling person first screams out of fear and then hits the ground), and the buildings with fewer stories are delayed scream buildings or DSB's (because a falling person first hits the ground and then begins to scream out of pain).

Another competely retarded photography term in the English language is "shutter speed". It has, again, nothing whatsoever to do with speed (the magnitude of an object's velocity). What is actually meant by "shutter speed" in the English language is the time interval between the shutter's opening and closing. I doubt the actual speed of the shutter ever changes, and even if it did it would hardly make any difference.

Do I need to tell you that in our language we call the time interval between the shutter's opening and closing "exposuretime"? In fact, I dare to boldly suggest that the English-speaking peoples also have the ability to distinguish between the concepts of time and speed. But somehow they are so fixated on tradition that they can't get loose. That's why their SF writers put sailing masters on their spaceships.

Oh, and don't even get me started on English computer terminology. That totally merits an article of its own.

I'd like to give you one more example of that tendency of referring to the same thing by different words loaned from different languages (as well as unreasonable tradition-fixatedness). I mentioned in a previous article that the English legal language is sheer horror. One particularly retarded thing about it is precisely that habit of using two words to name the same thing. Examples:

any and all

null and void

terms and conditions

last will and testament

"All" obviously includes "any", only the lawyers in the English-speaking countries seem to be too stupid to realise it. "Null" and "void" are the same thing. "Terms" and "conditions" are the same thing. Etc. No other language in which I have read legal documents uses such needless repetitions (except sometimes when they have obviously translated an English text word by word).

Yes, I know, if one really wants to split hairs, one can argue that "null" and "void" are not quite exactly the same (in fact my native language has two separate legal terms to that effect, but they are never used together; you always choose the one that is appropriate, and you look like a bloody amateur when you get it wrong); one could argue that "last will" can be given a meaning slightly different from "testament". But the point is that it's never done. Those pairs of words are virtually always used together, creating verbal noise by unnecessary duplication. How many legal texts have you seen which say that something is just null but not void, or just void but not null? Can you take a "last will and testament" and show me which part of it is last will and which part is testament? I don't think so.

As to terms and conditions, one can argue that some terms are conditions and some are not. But if so, the nonsensicalness of the phrase "terms and conditions" is particularly obvious. It's like saying "vehicles and cars" or "animals and cats" or "human beings and Americans". It is inconceivable to me that a person who is too stupid to recognise the illogicality of that could ever get a law degree.

The English legal language clings mindlessly and pointlessly to such unnecessary duplications. Maybe it is because 500 years ago one scholar used one term and another one used another, and nobody has the courage to say "Hey, isn't it about time to cut the crap?" Or maybe one term originates from Latin and another one from Greek, and no one is absolutely certain that they couldn't be given different meanings in some obscure context, so everyone always uses both terms just in case. And strangely enough the English-speaking world doesn't seem to have a mechanism for improving its legal language, for ridding it of such nonsense.

So that is one of the things that makes the English legal language more confusing that it should be.

But now I have really written long enough and I have other things to do, so bye for now.

More on the English language's tendency to isolatingness

My article "The Astonishing Primitiveness of the English Language" has drawn a large number of angry comments from the native English speakers who are, as I have clearly pointed out, definitely not the target audience of that article. "How dare you say our language is primitive?" Their anger is perfectly understandable, them being so used to being looked up to by all the world. But they just don't have an idea what it's like to have at your disposal a language where you can substitute one affix for another and get a different meaning which would take ten words in English to explain.

Anyway, I would like to take this opportunity to try and clarify a couple of things, lest someone begins to think that it's somehow difficult for me to reply to the criticism I've been getting.

I read an article some time ago (too bad I can't find it anymore) where a native English speaker discussed the differences of languages. He brought examples from the Chinese, showing how the verbs and nouns don't have various grammatical forms the way they do in English. Indeed he demonstrated quite convincingly that the Chinese people's way of thinking must be quite different from the English people's. But he was too afraid to spell it out, so he took it all back by saying something like this: "Do those examples mean that the Chinese people's way of thinking is different from the English people's. No-no, of course not! Every people's way of thinking is exactly the same. It's just that the Chinese express less meaning with the actual language and leave much of the meaning to be deduced from the context."

Well, that is exactly what I mean by saying that a language is primitive. You have to leave much of the meaning to be deduced from the context, because you can't express it through the language.

And just so you don't suspect me of native language bias, let me tell you that I heard a Chinese woman who was teaching the Chinese language say to her students in the first lesson: "Our language is easy to learn because we have no grammar."

The point of my previous article was that English looks to us like Chinese looks to the native English speakers. While English may technically qualify as a synthetic language, on a scale isolating-synthetic it is closer to Chinese than to, for instance, Russian. (Just as before, I am deliberately limiting the discussion as much as possible to big languages, in order to not deprive the readers of the opportunity to argue against me.)

I think the fastest and easiest way to get a personal impression of what kind of a crippled language English is, is by translating subtitles from and into English. (Or, equivalently, create non-English subtitles for an English-language movie, and English subtitles for a non-English-language movie.) When you translate subtitles into English, you will be... well... sad, really, to see how much meaning gets lost because you just can't say it in English, at least not at acceptable subtitle length. Staying with the example of Russian, virtually all those же, -то and -ка which are such a delight to listen to will be impossible for you to share with your English viewers, just as a number of other nuances which add colour to the text's factual content.

The same thing does not happen when you translate subtitles from English. On the contrary. You will routinely find yourself in situations where the English text goes like: "A is B. C is D," and in the target language you have to write "A is B, and C is D," because without "and" it would just look totally weird. Or the English text goes like: "A is B. C is D," and in the target language you have to write "A is B, because C is D," because without "because" it would just look totally weird. Or the English text goes like: "A is B. C is D," and in the target language you have to write "A is B. After all, C is D," because without "after all" it would just look totally weird.

For some reason, the native English speakers tend to choose to omit those "ands" and "buts" and "becauses" and "isn't it?s", putting only the bare facts into their words and leaving the rest to intonation and (the listener's understanding of the) context.

Look at this line from a US movie:

Wilmer, I'm sorry to lose you, but I want you to know I couldn't be fonder of you if you were my own son. Well, if you lose a son, it's possible to get another. There's only one Maltese Falcon.

If it were a written text, I would automatically assume that there is a typographical error, the word "but" having been mistakenly omitted before "There's only...". One can beget another son, but one cannot find another Maltese Falcon. I mean, binding two statements with the word "but" is not a complex linguistic concept like imperfect progressive. It is one of the most elementary things in the human language. There can hardly be a human being in the world for whom it is too difficult to understand or too uncomfortable to use. But that character in the movie actually talks like that, so it's not a mistake, the writer actually meant it to be that way.

Or look at that passage from a famous British writer's novel:

She was going to be tortured, she was going to be raped, she was going to be shot. She had done nothing. She did not want to die.

If someone wrote like that in my native language, people would think he's retarded. I mean, really. What is it, a computer program or a novel?

Or look at this conversation from a US TV series:

"No, she's telling the truth. Something happened. Something too horrible for her mind to handle. Her memory's blocked."

"Well, even if that's true, maybe it's blocked because she killed Kara."

"Well, it's possible. I don't think so. I think she's a victim."

I just can't understand how any human being in the world would say it without the word "but" before "I don't think so." It is possible, but I don't think so. It's not like he reflected for a while and then said: "No, I don't think so." He said "I don't think so," immediately after "Well, it's possible."

And, just to make the picture complete, in my native language I would almost certainly add a certain word before "think she's a victim", but that nuance would take unreasonably long to explain here.

 
That kind of thing keeps popping up in English all the time. Maybe the most jaw-dropping example of this kind is this conversation in an Australian movie.
The character says (apparently referring to neighbourhoods of a city):
"I live in the Mountains because Blacktown or Penrith would kill me."
The subtitles that came with the movie read, would you believe:
"I live in the Mountains, Blacktown or Penrith would kill me."
Let me make this absolutely clear: the word "because" is spoken, but omitted in the subtitles!
Could be just a mistake. But it could also be that the author of the subtitles felt that "because" was an unnecessary word that could be omitted. I wouldn't be surprised, not the slightest, because I have seen so many occasions in English-language movies and books where the second part of the sentence is the cause of the first part of the sentence and yet there is no word "because" between them.

 
Added later:
No, it was not a mistake. Here is a dialogue from a TV series:
"Mugging gone wrong maybe?"
"Don't think so. His wallet's gone, but he did have this on him." (showing a certain object of value)
The subtitles say:
"Don't think so. His wallet's gone. He did have this on him."
It is obvious to every sane human being outside the English-speaking world that the world "but" is essential here. But the author of the subtitles who wouldn't skip one single "uh", "um", "ooh", "ah", "unh", "ahem", "ha ha" or "ha ha ha" thought the word "but" was irrelevant.

Another example. (Some moron accused me in a comment of not bringing examples. Ha!)
Speech:
Walter wouldn't let that happen. At least I believe he wouldn't let that happen.
Subtitles:
Walter wouldn't let that happen. I believe he wouldn't let that happen.
So, another retard (or possibly the same one) who would never skip a "uh", "uhn", "ahem" or "heh" and thinks the difference between "ha ha" and "ha ha ha" is vitally important, considers the words "at least" irrelevant in this context!!!!
Really, those people's brains ought to be scientifically researched.

 
Of course, if English is the only language you speak properly, chances are you won't notice it and even if you did, you wouldn't find anything wrong with it. And that is, as I've been saying, the reason why it will be pointless for a monolingual person to participate in this discussion. How can you be able to bring forward expert arguments in favour or disfavour of various sniper rifles if you have never fired one? I have no use for armchair theoreticians. I am only interested in discussions with people whom I can learn from. Unless you have considerable tongue-on experience with languages, do not waste my time.

By the way, the other side of the coin is that Russians, for instance, have the tendency to excessively start sentences with "А..." ("But..."). Often it doesn't really add anything, it's just a bad habit. It's like the native English speakers' tendency to start their sentences with an unnecessary "Well..." But that doesn't disprove my point because for every superfluous "well" they omit a couple of necessary "buts" and such.

I was suggesting in my previous article that somehow the English speakers' linguistical thinking seems to be closer to that of the Chinese than that of the Continental European peoples. That can be seen from the fact that the English language has been and still is developing in the direction of isolatingness. Meaning, the native English speakers seem to like to leave unused even those rudiments of grammar which their language still has. I brought examples of that in my previous article. Here I'd like to add just one thing. Recently I have begun noticing how often the native English speakers use the present tense when talking about the past. For instance, they are asked to recall what exactly happened when they came home last night, and they're like: "I open the door, I walk in, I see a broken cup on the floor." That kind of a stylistic tool is occasionally used in other languages as well, and it totally has its benefits in certain situations, but the English-speaking peoples seem to be doing it on a regular basis. So, they seem to have a linguistical mindset similar to that Chinese girl who told me in perfect seriousness that it is pointless to put the verb into the past tense when it is clear from the word "yesterday" that the events described take place in the past.

And another thing I just remembered – I keep seeing adjectives used as adverbs (like, people write "doubtless" when they mean "doubtlessly"). Why bother adding the suffix when you will be understood anyway, right? And why bother saying "they are" when "they is" will be understood just as well, right?

And they almost always say "maximum" when they mean "maximal". I don't know if the adverb would in that case be "maximumly" or would it remain "maximally". (Oh, I forgot. They omit the "-ly", of course. Silly me.)

And it's just unbelievable how they keep mixing up "who" and "whom". I mean, what kind of a retard wouldn't know when to say "who" and when to say "whom"?

I could go on but I think you're getting my point by now.

For the record, I am not saying that a primitive language is necessarily a bad language. (For instance, a vague language like English is a blessing for poets and comedians.) I'm just dying to understand what it is that makes people create more or less complexity in their languages. The way the prevailing mentality of an ethnic group is reflected in their language is one of the most fascinating subjects in the world, as far as I am concerned. Not only that, but there is that general tendency of languages to slowly alter their type (a process which is well known to be taking place with my native language as well). As I understand, the only legitimate explanation under the yoke of political correctness is "it just happens". That is not satisfactory. I want to understand what it is that makes English move away from the languages it shares a common origin with. What on Earth might be the similarities between the English people and the Chinese people that make them enjoy the same kinds of things in a language?

I mean, the linguists seem to be largely concentrating on figuring out which languages are related in terms of stemming from the same proto-language. While that is very important, I have found curious connections which don't seem to fit in any linguistical categories – such as certain affinities between German, Estonian and Russian on one side, and English, Swedish and Finnish on the other side. A Swedish text translates into Finnish almost by itself, while translating it into Estonian is really hard work. There are connections between languages which seem to have something to do with not just common history and exchange of vocabulary, but also with some sort of linguistic mentality. The linguists admit the existence of such tendencies in certain isolated cases, such as the Balkan sprachbund (amazingly, in almost a hundred years, the English haven't managed to create a word of their own for it; I mean, it must be hell for them to pronounce it), but the phenomenon is much wider. Chinese and Vietnamese are considered to be totally unrelated, but they are in fact very similar. (I daresay more so that Chinese and Thai which are supposed to be related.) Finnish and Hungarian may technically be related, but for all practical purposes they're not much closer than Finnish and Quechua. I mean, relatedness of the languages is undoubtedly verifiable and has its useful purpose in language research, but it's being grossly overvalued at the expense of other connections which are not so easy to quantify scientifically (such as  the greater or smaller overlapping of semantic fields). I mean, Hungarian is related to Finnish while Swedish has no relation to Finnish whatsoever, but in the real life a native Finnish speaker would surely find Swedish much easier to learn than Hungarian – not only in terms of common vocabulary (which can be explained by geographical closeness and a long common history) but also in terms of grammar. Meaning, when he has learned the vocabulary, he will find it much easier to form grammatically correct Swedish phrases than Hungarian ones.

That is that other kind of relatedness which I don't know the proper term for and which seems to be more than mere areal diffusion. I mean, why do the black Americans tend to make their English more primitive than the average speaker – a phenomenon routinely sneered at by the white racists? Where does that tendency come from? Their African origin (as the racists would suggest)? I don't think so. After all, the major African languages seem to be grammatically more complex than English, so it doesn't look like the black people have less capability for, or tolerance of, language complexity. And the English don't seem to be all that different from the other Europeans, so what is it that makes them shun morphology, or stick to an amazingly rigid syntax? Speaking of language contacts and mutual influences, look at the strikingly complex grammar of Irish. Why hasn't it rubbed off on the English speakers, the latter seeming rather like Chinese-minded people struggling to get rid of the curse of a Germanic grammar? With a large percentage of Irish in the population of the USA, why seem the Americans more inclined to primitivising their language than the British?

One might suggest that English and Chinese share the drag to primitivity because they are both languages of big empires, the assimilated peoples having learned the language improperly and thus contributing to its primitivisation. No, that won't fly either, because if it were so, why hasn't it happened to Russian? Sure enough, German, an empire-language, is more primitive than Icelandic, a non-empire-language, but so are Norwegian, Swedish and Danish which have hardly had anything worth calling an empire. Neither does Spanish have a simpler grammar than Italian – and speaking of Romanic languages, Latin has one of the most superior grammars there's ever been, and the Romans most certainly assimilated a lot of foreign peoples. Yet their language went primitive (that is, split into a number of related languages more primitive than Latin) only after the empire was gone, that is when the various groups of former non-Romans went their own separate ways. So the empire hypothesis just won't do. It must be something else.

I would very much like to know if such things have been studied apart from isolated research papers stating "wow, it's so interesting and we have no idea what makes it so".

Eesti käänded ja inglise eessõnad

Eestlastele on omane sügav rahvuslik alaväärsuskompleks. Meenutagem kasvõi ärkamisaegset sagedast virinat, kuidas leedulased astuvad jõuliste sammudega iseseisvuse poole, meie, eestlased ei saa aga mitte millegagi hakkama. Tegelikkus oli hoopis teistsugune. Leedulased nimetasid küll eestlastest varem oma NSV vabariigiks ümber ja võtsid oma meeskonnad NSV Liidu meistrivõistlustelt ära, aga enam-vähem igas muus suhtes olime meie neist selgelt üle. (Ja oleme, söandan väita, tänapäevani.)

Või näiteks läks ühes seltskonnas jutt eri maade liikluskultuurile. Üks inimene rääkis, kuidas selle ja selle maa liikluses oli see ja see asi halvasti, teine rääkis, kuidas tolle ja tolle maa liikluses oli too ja too asi halvasti, kuid siis ütles keegi: «Aga see on selge, et nii kohutavat liiklust kui Eestis ei ole mitte kusagil,» ja sellega paistsid kõik nõus olevat. Ilmselgelt ei olnud nad kunagi käinud Tais, Hiinas ega Mehhikos. Ma söandan isegi väita, et Venemaal, Poolas ja Rumeenias ei ole liikluskultuur meie tasemel. Aga kus sa pääsed. Paljud eestlased paistavad juba emapiimaga omandavat vajaduse oma maad ja rahvast kõikidest teistest viletsamaks pidada.

Üks eestlastele omase rahvusmasohhismi ilminguid on aeg-ajalt aruteludes üleskerkiv väide, et eesti keeles ei ole tegelikult 14 käänet, vaid ainult 5. Ülejäänud käänded ei olevat õiged käänded, sest nende moodustamine käib alati ühtemoodi.

Minu meelest on käändelõpud siiski midagi enamat kui näiteks ki/gi-liide. Neid saab ju panna käändelõppudele otsa, kuid käändelõppe üksteise otsa panna ei saa. S.t. me saame öelda «voodistki», aga ei saa öelda «voodigale» või «voodisseni». Seega on käänetel ikkagi nagu teine roll kui lihtsalt mingitel järelliidetel.

Kuid mitte see pole peamine, vaid mul tekib neid jutte kuulates küsimus, kas käände olemuslikuks tunnuseks on see, et tema moodustamine ei tohi loogiline olla. (See meenutab mulle 80-ndatel aastatel kuuldut, et keegi filoloog olevat teinud ettepaneku vahetada ära rajava ja saava käände järjekord – ilmselt tundus talle, et viimase nelja käände lõppude järjekord «ni-na-ta-ga» on liiga kergesti meeldejäetav ja pole seetõttu piisavalt teaduslik.) Ma ei räägi seda sellepärast, nagu oleks mingi uhkuseasi, et kelle keeles on rohkem käändeid, vaid ma pean silmas seda, et miks me peaksime oma käänded mingisugusteks liitelisteks vormideks vms. ümber nimetama? Mis sellisest reformist paremaks muutuks? Kas see võimaldaks esitada eesti keele grammatikat kuidagi otstarbekamalt? Kas see teeks eesti keele õppimise kuidagi lihtsamaks? Või mida? Ma tahaks, et keegi eesti keele käänetearvu vähendamise propageerijatest esitaks oma soovile mingi mõistliku põhjenduse – peale selle, et ladina keele käändeid on palju raskem moodustada kui eesti keele omi. Ladina keel ongi hoopis teistsugune keel. Ja mis siis? Araabia keeles kirjutatakse täishäälikud abimärkidena kaashäälikute peale, kuid sellepärast ei tule veel kellelegi pähe väita, et araabia tähestik ei ole tähestik.

Aga see selleks. Põhiline, millest ma teile täna kirjutada tahtsin, on ammune eestlaste rahvusmasohhismist kantud eksiarvamus, millele mul ikka vahel seltskondades vastu tuleb vaielda, et ärgem me uhkeldagem midagi oma keele väljendusrikkusega – inglise keeles ei ole jah käändeid, aga vaadake kui palju seal eessõnu on! Nagu üks meie rahvuskaaslane kunagi väljendus: «Kui eesti keeles on 14 käänet, siis inglise keeles on vähemalt 50.» Teisisõnu on mõned inimesed seisukohal, et oma eessõnadega suudab inglise keel väljendada suurematki hulka nüansse kui eesti keel oma käänetega.

Sellele, et eesti keele omapäraks on eessõnade vähesus, ei saa tõesti vastu vaielda. Sellega lahmivad eesti ksenofiilid jätavad aga hämmastaval kombel täielikult kahe silma vahele tagasõnad. Under the table on eesti keeles «laua all». S.t. ingliskeelne eessõna under on eesti keeles täiesti olemas, lihtsalt me ei pane teda põhisõna ette, vaid järele. Väljendusrikkuse seisukohalt on aga mõlemad variandid ühtemoodi head. Seega ei ole asjakohane väita, et inglise keel on eesti keelest väljendusrikkam tänu sellele, et inglise keeles on palju rohkem eessõnu kui eesti keeles käändeid. Küsida tuleb hoopis seda, kumb keel pakub rikkalikumaid väljendusvõimalusi käänete, eessõnade ja tagasõnade peale kokku.

See küsimus hakkas mind huvitama ühel ilusal päeval, millest on möödas juba üle 20 aasta. Mul ei olnud käepärast inglise keele sõnaraamatuid, kuid olid saksa keele omad, ning eessõnade kasutamise suhtes on inglise ja saksa keele vahel suured sarnasused. Ma hakkasin nuputama, kuidas oleks võimalik kindlaks teha, kui palju on eesti ja saksa keeles ees- ja tagasõnu kokku. Ma ei saa ju lihtsalt panna kirja kõiki ees- ja tagasõnu, mida ma tean – see moonutaks tulemust saksa keele kahjuks, sest ma oskan eesti keelt palju paremini kui saksa keelt. Kuidas siis loendada ees- ja tagasõnu kummalegi keelele liiga tegemata? Mulle tuli pähe selline meetod:

Ma võtsin paberilehe ja kirjutasin selle vasakusse äärde kümmekond saksakeelset eessõna, mis mulle esimestena pähe tulid. Siis võtsin saksa-eesti sõnaraamatu ja leidsin igale kirjapandud saksa eessõnale vastavad eestikeelsed ees- ja tagasõnad. Need kirjutasin paberilehe paremale äärele. Siis võtsin eesti-saksa sõnaraamatu ja leidsin kõik kirjapandud eestikeelsetele sõnadele vastavad saksa ees- ja tagasõnad (jättes mõistagi topelt kirjutama need, mis olid juba kirjas). Ja nii edasi.

Mul ei tulnud seda tööd teha kuigi kaua, sest päris ruttu sai selgeks, et eestikeelne loetelu tuleb saksakeelsest palju pikem.

Selline tulemus oli mulle täiesti ootamatu. Olin pidanud iseenesestmõistetavaks, et kui eesti keeles on rohkem käändeid kui saksa keeles, siis peab sama väljendusrikkuse saavutamiseks olema saksa keeles rohkem ees-tagasõnu kui eesti keeles. Tuli aga välja, et neidki oli eesti keeles rohkem.

Inglise keelega peaks olema samamoodi, sest ma ei usu, et inglise keeles oleks eessõnu kordades rohkem kui saksa keeles.

Nii et kui te juhtute kuulma, kuidas järjekordne tohman ärpleb, et inglise keeles on nii palju eessõnu, siis küsige temalt, kas ta tagasõnadest on kunagi midagi kuulnud. (Me ei ütle, jah, «taga maja» nagu peened eurooplased, vaid «maja taga», aga isegi lakkamatult lääne poole kummargil justkui-eestlane peab tunnistama, et väljendusrikkuse seisukohalt ei ole tagasõna eessõnast kuidagimoodi halvem.) Ja kui tal siis veel midagi kobiseda on, siis soovitage talle sedasama eksperimenti, mille mina omal ajal tegin: võta eesti-inglise ja inglise-eesti sõnaraamat ning leia nii palju kummaski keeles ees- ja tagasõnu kui suudad. Siis näed oma silmaga, kumbi on rohkem.